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In the center of Nice, 400 meters from the beach, the Hotel Splendid 4-star has been managed by the same family for the last 3 generations, it is part of the Warwick collection.

Interview of Michel Tschann, Hotel Manager of the Splendid Nice, by Constance Konold

Multi-faceted and pluri-talented, Michel Tschann is not your run-of-the-mill hotelier. Managing director of the Hôtels Splendid & Gounod Nice since 1989, he is also President and CEO of SHIN (Societé hotelière immobilière de Nice), the holding company for the two hotels which his family owns.

Tschann is also an elected member of the Alpes Maritimes Chamber of Commerce and president of the Côte d’Azur hotel association "Syndicat des hôteliers azuréens", among other honors.

In addition to his hotel and civic responsibilities, Michel Tschann has found time to teach and lecture on subjects which include labor law, tourism, and customer loyalty. A peripatetic student, Tschann studied public law in Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration and the Goethe Institute in Bavaria. He holds a doctorate in administrative law from the University of Nice.

Modest about his impeccable English, Tschann readily shared his insights on a few issues that interest and concern ESHOTEL students.

CK: What basic changes in values that touch on hospitality have you noticed in France in the last three decades?

MT: Leaving aside the philosophical and political changes as well as all the recent crises that will require changes in the future, I think that France’s main evolution in the last thirty years has been one of outlook. All the post World War II optimism that enabled people to aspire to brighter futures for several generations has given way to an attitude of hesitancy and uncertainty.

On the positive side, I think that the French have changed a lot in some specific areas. One that is particularly noticeable in the hotel industry is the generally improved international relations that the French individually enjoy and maintain. Now that travel is more accessible to economy travelers, more French people realize that France is no better or worse that any other country. Fortunately, they also have learned that France could benefit by being more open to other cultures.

This widening world outlook and openness has been made possible thanks to technological advances that have helped lower international travel costs. Economic brackets of French previously restricted financially to vacations in France are now able to explore the globe. Nevertheless, they still expect reasonable standards for their money everywhere they travel. And thus French tourism has had a big impact on foreign as well as domestic destinations.

With regard to restaurants, for instance, this opening to the world has been a motor in democratization of restaurants. There have been radical changes in how people eat and expect to be served in the last twenty years. Suddenly, table manners are less important and nobody cares what fork you use. Attire has become more informal, even in the better restaurants. Waiters no longer frown if you order only one course or ask for a vegetarian dish or two starters.

On the Côte d’Azur, we still get a wealthy foreign clientele, while the French who like to travel are now more apt to take advantage of cheap flights to visit foreign countries like Egypt.

Consequently, our hotel has modified its traditions and adapted its service to accommodate this democratization trend. At the Hôtel Splendid, we no longer expect our maîtres d’hôtel to carve the duck in front of the client, so we no longer train for that skill. With regard to service, we teach the American motto, "The client is always right". But under our breath we still say, "But the employee knows better!".

In the past, wealthy clientele did not expect waiters or hotel staff to engage them in conversation. Today, we teach our staff sufficient interpersonal skills to allow them to interact more informally with clients without spilling over into excessive familiarity, like the Californian slap on the back.

We also teach our staff not to have any expectations about tipping, because tipping varies so widely from one country or culture to another. The whole tipping issue has become less important to our staff than in the past. Basically, we train our employees to respect cultural differences. This is good for our international clientele and also for our in-house relations since we have seven nationalities represented on our staff.

Before World War I, the percentage of French employees in the hotel industry in France was very low. Most of the staff was foreign and this was good for business since many languages were represented in each hotel.

 

CK: What’s the history of the Splendid?

Our original hotel was built in 1883, then completely rebuilt in 1963. It now has 127 rooms and 50 employees, most of whom have been with the hotel for 30 years. Our workforce turnover is so low it’s almost inexistent. Only the retirees leave. This has a positive aspect in that is gives our hotel great continuity and stability. On the other hand, because the reasons that people don’t leave may be due to their fear of not finding another job on France’s tight job market, we are always concerned that some may not be living or working to their full potential at jobs of their preference. It also means we cannot fire an employee except for serious professional misconduct, and this creates another problem we need to deal with.

The Hôtel Splendid has been a family-owned operation for the last three generations. I personally am the third managing director of this hotel in my family, having been preceded by my father and my grandfather.

I would characterize our hotel’s values as being comfortable, family-attentive luxury, certainly not ostentatious luxury. After giving up our Sofitel franchise in 1999, two years ago we joined the Warwick Collection which is more suitable to a small four-star hotel. The Warwick Collection shares our own value that no two hotels should be alike.

Hôtel Splendid’s main clientele is British, American, Japanese and Russian. The hotel respects French and European legislation on child labor, equal opportunity for the sexes, races and religion as well as financial transparency and makes every effort to comply with environmentally-friendly and ecological policies.

CK: What are your expectations of job candidates?

MT: I believe that the most important criteria which we use when screening CVs for good candidates for our hotel style are the following:

1) Language ability – We would favor an idiot who speaks good English over an intelligent person who doesn’t speak any languages. We wouldn’t consider hiring anyone who doesn’t speak fluent English.

2) Smiling, open faces and intelligent, pleasant attitudes – I don’t mean they have to be beautiful or handsome. We select only on their ability to work well in teams. This is far more important to our business than looks.

3) Specific technical skills – We would favor someone with good computer know-how rather than culinary skills, for instance, because we can teach the latter in-house.

4) Flexibility – This is still one of the most important requirements of the hotel business because the nature of our work is to provide service around the clock, seven days a week.

 

CK: How do you deal with incoming CVs?

I personally screen all of the CVs that come to the hotel, passing the ones to be retained or kept on file to my assistant for follow-up. Because of my busy work schedule, I need to rapidly grasp whether a candidate meets our standards or has some potential with us. It’s easier for me to handle emailed CVs if they are in the body of the email since it takes too long to open CVs that come in as attachments. Sometimes the attachments don’t open or take too long to open. It also makes it easier for us to respond to inquiries.

We’ve received a few CVs on CD-ROMs but I don’t think it’s a good idea. It takes too much time to fiddle with them and they’re apt to get mislaid because not easy to file.

Obviously, a traditional hard-copy CV and cover letter in the mail is still an acceptable method, but it makes it harder for us to reply and candidates are less likely to hear from us. We try to answer every job application but it’s a Sisyphean task when I receive 12 CVs per day.

It’s still true that in France in the hospitality business we expect to see a photo on or accompanying the CV. It’s not because we run a beauty contest looking for Chippendale guys or glamorous women, but a photo is a wonderful way to see if the person has a smiling, open face. That is essential in our hotel.

You would be amazed to see how many photos we receive that put the job hunter in a bad light. They are entirely too casually dressed or women show inappropriate décoltés. The other put-off is the number of spelling errors candidates let pass in their cover letters or CVs. If the candidate is foreign, we give him the benefit of the doubt. But if he makes errors in his own language, it’s enough for us to file his candidacy vertically.

 

CK: What about training at the Splendid?

With regard to training, we teach some specific skills, such as office or culinary skills, in-house. However, we offer most of our training, especially language training, at outside schools. Currently, we have several employees who are studying Japanese. We don’t offer our staff intercultural training per se because we don’t want to communicate stereotypes of, say, the Japanese. What we do teach about other cultures is all market specific.

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